


you're just wasted (and thinking about the past again.)

by orphan_account



Series: today too (you're in my memory) [1]
Category: NCT (Band)
Genre: Gen, Mentions of blood and gore, Platonic Relationships, by these things called Undead, it's almost one AM, mark is a newbie, taeil is a seasoned undead fighter, the world's been taken over
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-05-18
Updated: 2019-05-18
Packaged: 2020-03-07 12:48:27
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,110
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18873514
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/orphan_account
Summary: For a moment, it’s just the echo of the gun clattering against the bloodstained ground, the splash of the blood-diluted water, the rain against the ground and the sirens in a distance. The protests down the streets, crying for a God who wouldn’t listen, praying for the immunity they didn’t deserve.





	you're just wasted (and thinking about the past again.)

It rains when Mark shoots his first Undead.

 

Taeil notices that because the rain made the blood run like rivers under their feet. He thinks  _ fuck _ , the blood seeping into his shoes would mean he’d have to use the ones from the house, the ones that didn’t belong to him. There are the bodies on the ground, their mouths opened and they bled red onto the concrete, the rain filling their dead skulls through their vacant eye sockets. He watches Mark’s hair stick to his forehead, the way the rain had made his clothes cling onto his skin, the way droplets scattered from his hair when he flinched away from the Undead who tried to touch him.

 

He looks sick whenever their sickly hands came up the grip his ankles. Taeil always shoots them before they come close, dead in the center of their foreheads, precise and sharp, just like he’d been taught to. He’s been around for a while, living this life of clotted blood and dead bodies, but until yesterday, Mark was a normal kid. Taeil doesn’t believe in covering up the gnarly reality of their lives and tying a blindfold around anyone’s eyes just because they were young and impressionable (that was more of Johnny, if he was being honest, and even Kun on an occasion) but he can’t help but want to protect Mark from the grit of it all.

 

In Taeil’s experience, almost anyone could shoot a gun. It’s just aim, lock, and fire. A simple click of the trigger, and then recoil, then aim, lock, and fire again. Then repeat. 

 

But with Mark, he holds the gun like he has no idea what the fuck he’s doing, like he doesn’t know where his finger goes, and he’s shaking down to the tiniest, most insignificant bone in his body. 

 

And as soon as he presses the trigger with an unsure finger and the bullet goes barreling out, hitting the Undead behind Taeil on the shoulder, effectively giving Taeil enough time to robotically turn around and finish the job, Mark flinches like the bullet had pierced his own skin, and drops the gun.

 

For a moment, it’s just the echo of the gun clattering against the bloodstained ground, the splash of the blood-diluted water, the rain against the ground and the sirens in a distance. The protests down the streets, crying for a God who wouldn’t listen, praying for the immunity they didn’t deserve. 

 

“Oh, God,” Mark chokes out, and the way it sounds like something is crushing him down, bearing down on his neck like dead weight, like he can’t believe what he’s done, makes a part of Taeil’s heart curl into itself with a deadly crunch. His hands are still shaking, the color running off his face, and Taeil can see that his eyes are teary. And when he looks up, finally meeting Taeil’s eyes, there’s so much fear in them that Taeil feels like the air has been sucked out of his lungs. “I killed him.”

 

“He was dead already,” Taeil says, and crosses the alleyway in a few strides to stand next to Mark, gripping his shoulder and trying to hold him down in case he did something stupid. (Taeil hates that he’s never been able to let go of the image of Jaehyun with a gun to his own head, eyes clenched shut, saying  _ I killed him I killed him I killed him I killed him  _ over and over again.) “Mark,” he says, fingers digging into his shoulder, “Mark, he was gone, yeah?”

 

Mark is nineteen. He’s a year older than Donghyuck, who doesn’t sleep at night unless he’s with Renjun, a year older than Renjun who resolutely pulls Donghyuck closer every night like he could act like a human shield between the demons in his world and his friend. He’s a year older than Jeno who could already shoot without anyone having to teach him anything, a year older than Jaemin who is still asleep in his capsule in the basement. He’s a year older than Yangyang who still struggles with Korean and learns from Kun’s picture books. 

 

He’s as old as Yukhei is, and even if Yukhei goes out with Johnny on hunts and secures perimeters and defends them from the Undead, he comes home every other night and cries into Ten’s arms. He’s as old as Hendery is, and even if Hendery monitored the movement of the Undead on the computer and listened to their wails every night, he had trouble sleeping, and sometimes Taeil listened to him count sheep until he could. He’s as old as Xiaojun is, and even if Xiaojun’s hands no longer shake when he aims, locks, and fires, he’s still tired of running and hiding and making it one day at a time.

 

( _ They’re just kids,  _ he remembers Kun saying one night, looking years and years older than he was, one hand clenched around his gun and the other around the blood-stained jacket Yuta had been wearing when he came back after a rough night. He’s been living this life for as long as Taeil has and he knows it never becomes easier.)

 

“You did him a favor,” Taeil tells Mark, watching the rain droplets on his eyelashes, the tears on the slope of his cheeks, the dead blood on his shirt. He’s fucking terrified, breathing uneven and short, pained and rough, like he wanted to speak but was afraid that he’d just sob if he did, and it paints a tragic, soulless picture. Taeil feels sick just thinking about it. “He wasn’t alive. He was dead, and you’ve just put him to rest.”

 

_ You’ve just put him to rest,  _ he tells himself again, just for a good measure, and pulls Mark closer with the hand he isn’t holding the gun with. Mark is broader than he is, taller than he is, but he seems so small when he’s pressed against Taeil, cold arms around him and face pressed into his neck, his entire body hunched over like the weight of the world rests on his shoulders. 

 

The blood stretches out like a river under their feet. Their audience is dead bodies with dead eyes and clotted blood running out of bullet wounds.

 

“It’s okay,” Taeil promises Mark, just as the boy chokes on a sob and his arms tighten around him, like he’ll disappear if he lets go, as if he’s afraid that he’ll be alone if he puts the slightest distance between them. Taeil turns his head upwards to the sky that’s crying all the tears he could never bring himself to, and closes his eyes and says, “I’ve got you.”

**Author's Note:**

> have u told ur local racist to fuck off today? if not here's ur reminder


End file.
